I climb onto my knees and twirl to straddle him. “Is that a rhetorical question? If it isn’t, I’ve quite a few ideas.”
I give him a smile that softens his features an iota further. But then they crisp up like dough left too long in the oven.
“While you were gone, I had a conversation with my brother and sister—Izolda,” he adds. “I told them the truth.”
My pulse hisses like the water being transformed into steam. “Izolda knows we’re not mates?”
“Yes.”
I purse my lips as I recall Aodhan asking me to reach out to Konstantin to let him know of our impending arrival.
Bastard.
“Did they tell you it was a shit idea and warn you to cut things off before either of us grew attached?”
With a sigh, he drops his chin, fastening his attention to the ornament that sits right beneath his damp, glistening pecs. “No.”
My forehead furrows. “Then what’s with the sullen mood and underwear?”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “You’re a shifter,Yegmenka.”
“I thought you knew,” I deadpan, not seeing at all where he’s going with this.
He shoots me a droll look. “The talisman Meriam gave me blocks everything that contains a high amount of iron, which iswhyit impedes your shifter powers.”
My attention moves off the platinum pendant and back to his hooded stare. “It still doesn’t explain why you’ve preserved your underwear.”
“They’re my last stronghold.” Though impossible, the circles beneath his eyes seem to have bled down the taunt planes of his face. “The only thing that’s keeping me from being fully invaded by a person who might leave me, in the event that I’m not her mate.”
I snag my lip, tempted to tell him about my speculation that he just might bethe one. “So, you want to end this…?”
“Fuck no.”
“But you don’t want to go any farther than foreplay?”
“I…” He sucks in his cheeks.
“You…?”
His jaw clenches and his nostrils flare. Keeping his gaze locked on mine, he runs his hands up the sides of my body, lightly scraping each rib before growing bolder and outlining my breasts. My nipples become jealous of the attention he’s paying the skin around them, wishing he’d?—
His thumbs swish, and I moan.
“My siblings think…” he begins.
I’m torn between not wanting to discuss his siblings and wanting to hear all they think, since it seems to be related to his mood.
As he teases my tight peaks with small, feather-light circles, he continues, “They think that we might indeed be mates, and that my talisman is what’s impeding the connection.”
I snap out of my lust-filled daze so violently that my lashes displace steam. His hands trail to my waist and set there, as though he senses that if I’m not held, I will tip over from shock.
He’s right. I very well might.
I scrutinize the metal snowflake, then his face. “Take it off.”
His thumbs begin to rove again, this time, over the edge of my last rib. “There’s a catch, unbeknownst to all save for Meriam and me. And now,you.” At the slant of my eyebrows, he murmurs, “If I remove it, then it loses its magic and becomes no more than a pretty trinket.”
My breathing turns so labored that my head spins.
